“The girl, from the southern town of Knin, had only just started studying German at school and had been reading German books and watching German TV to become better, but was by no means fluent, according to her parents.
Since waking up from her 24 hourcoma however, she has been unable to speak Croatian, but is able to communicate perfectly in German.
Doctors at Split’s KB Hospital claim that the case is so unusual, various experts have examined the girl as they try to find out what triggered the change.
Hospital director Dujomir Marasovic said: “You never know when recovering from such a trauma how the brain will react. Obviously we have some theories although at the moment we are limited in what we can say because we have to respect the privacy of the patient.”
Psychiatric expert Dr Mijo Milas added: “In earlier times this would have been referred to as a miracle, we prefer to think that there must be a logical explanation – its just that we haven’t found it yet.
“There are references to cases where people who have been seriously ill and perhaps in a coma have woken up being able to speak other languages – sometimes even the Biblical languages such as that spoken in old Babylon or Egypt – at the moment though any speculation would remain just that – speculation – so it’s better to continue tests until we actually know something.”"
Read more at The Telegraph
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Very interesting!
That is truly incredible.
I’m learning German at the moment and very often traumatised on the stinky London tube but still…….can’t speak the language.
as long as she is healthy and awake, it’s all good
Like the foreign accent syndrome, but so much more extreme!
That is so cool…as long as she makes a full recovery of course.
It’s really not that rare — it’s called bilingual aphasia and is hypothezised to be caused by the fact that secondary languages reside in another part of the brain than primary ones. So if you damage the area holding your primary language, secondary languages may survive.
I’ve even read of a case involving a guy retaining only Klingon. That must be fun…
Very interesting, it reminds me of a girl in the UK who hit her head and then couldn’t write “forward” any more. Everything she wrote came out backwards, but another bump on the head and it corrected itself.
Now, learning languages is difficult for most of us. After 5 years in Thailand, my Thai is not that great.
I still think it would be good if Derren read a few different books on foreign languages and using his skills, know how to pronounce and speak another fluent language.
The images you guys choose to add to news posts are usually brilliant. For example: see above.
German books and tv? Information stored and wires crossed
If only House was real… he’d know.
I say bullshit. A knock on the head does not translate to language proficiency if the person never learned it. It cannot change ANYONE from a first year language student to a fluent speaker. It can’t magically increase your vocabulary. Perhaps if she had studied and not remembered words and/or forgotten phrases the knowledge may be there and able to be used after a knock in the head but this makes it sound like it gave her knowledge she had never been exposed to. It cannot move you from “just having started studying” to fluent. Period. There is no magic here and that’s what it would take for new words, new pronunciations to “appear” in her brain.
This reminds me of a story written by Dave Elman in his book “Hypnotherapy”, a classic in which he recounts the tale of an Italian grandfather who suddenly afflicted by a horrible stiff neck goes to Dave seeking help in relieving this disability which was troubling his life and family. After spontaneous regression to an earlier life, finding that he was a young irish man previously who stayed back while older men went off to war in his previous irish life, he made his way through all of the lonely wives of the town and acquired a bit of guilt that wasn’t cured by the hanging he bought for himself when the husbands returned.
After counseling he was cured of his neck problem. He only spoke italian, except during the regression. His family was curiously relieved.